


Home With You

by Razzaroo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:25:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razzaroo/pseuds/Razzaroo
Summary: "Garrett Hawke has never called any place home. Kirkwall, he thinks, will be no different." The Tale of the Champion or: Hawke's Downward Spiral, a Story in Three Parts





	1. Act One

**Author's Note:**

> The title is lifted from Hozier's "In A Week" which I have listened to, on loop, for about a month. This will be more relevant in Act Two, when it makes its arrival.

Garrett Hawke has never called any place home. To him, home has always been a list of names: Father, Mother, Carver, Bethany. Never Denerim. Never Lothering. Never the fishing village he’d grown up in, so small and insignificant that it didn’t even warrant a name.

Kirkwall, he thinks, will be no different.

He sits on the floor of Gamlen’s house and listens to his mother and uncle arguing in the other room, Wallace drooling over his knee. Carver’s on the chair beside him, whetstone grinding against his sword; Garrett can see his annoyance, feel it himself.

“It’s only a year,” he says, “The older you get, the faster years go by.”

“It’s not exactly what I had planned, Garrett.”

“I’ll have a word with the Blight, tell it about the inconvenience.” Garrett lazily scratches behind Wallace’s ears, “But just think: one year and you can do anything you want.” He nods towards the door, “Get away from Gamlen and his bitching about how much we cost to keep.”

Carver says nothing and so Garrett continues, because filling silences is what he does, “I hear the Circle has free room and board. If things get bad, at least I have options.”

“Don’t, Garrett,” Carver says, and it’s almost but not quite a snap, “Don’t talk like that.”

The front door slams and Garrett knows that means that Gamlen has left, which means that one of them should speak to their mother. It’s Wallace who moves first, heaving off of Garrett’s lap to go and nose around Leandra’s temper.

“I’m going to go and scrounge up some food,” Garrett says, standing. He cuffs Carver on the shoulder, “If I don’t come back by dark, come knocking on the knight-commander’s door for me.”

 

* * *

 

He poaches their food that winter. Takes Carver out into the mountains and sets traps and snares, shows Carver all the tricks their father had never had time to show him. Aveline disapproves and he knows it but he’ll do it time and time again if it means not seeing his family go hungry.

“It’s illegal, Hawke.”

Aveline sits at Gamlen’s rickety table, nursing a sour cup of coffee. Garrett ignores her glares and skins the rabbit Carver had set before him, peeling skin and fur back to expose muscle and ligament, the white gleam of bones.

“When you have a family to feed without a job,” he says, “then tell me how much you care about the law, Aveline.”

Her mouth presses a thin line and he knows that she doesn’t like it but he can barely bring himself to care. Carver isn’t going to sleep hungry and neither is his mother; even Gamlen’s complaining subsides when he has a full stomach.

“Besides,” he says, when she doesn’t reply, “if I didn’t take them, someone else would.”

Aveline sighs, exasperated, “That doesn’t make it right, Hawke.”

“A lot of things aren’t right. They’re just listened to because they’re written in law books.”

Aveline huffs and Garrett finishes his work and wonders if, maybe, his attitude is the one that keeps Carver from getting decent paid work.

 

* * *

 

“Deep Roads expedition. Because that’s what I wanted when I left Ferelden: more darkspawn.”

“They’re actually emptier after Blights.”

“Oh, good. Maybe I’ll move in there, get out of Gamlen’s house.”

Varric snorts and covers it by drinking deeply from his tankard. Garrett rocks his chair back and watches the other patrons of the Hanged Man, drinking them in. For the first time in a long while, he has money to spare, promise of more work tonight and so he indulges himself. His eyes must go distant because Varric lowers his drink, face more serious than usual.

“It’s not that bad, Hawke,” he says, “And just think of what’s at the end. Gold! Glory! All the stories to be told!”

“I do like the sound of gold,” Garrett says thoughtfully, “Not sure about glory, though. I don’t know if I want it to be that kind of story.”

“What kind of story, then?”

Garrett hums at the back of his throat, drums his fingers on the table as he thinks.

“A love story,” he says eventually, “I think I want a love story.” He points one of the Hanged Man’s crooked spoons at Varric, “You remember that when you write it down, won’t you Varric?”

“Sure thing, Hawke,” Varric says, “Just for you, I’ll remember to include a love story.”

 

* * *

 

“Can I help?”

Anders stops and looks at Garrett. He’s shed his coat and his shirt’s unlaced, exposing the lines of his collarbone and a scar on his chest, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Garrett’s not sure why he’s here, why he lingers in the clinic, because the sick and the desperate are no better company than Gamlen.

Then Anders smiles, small and tired, and Garrett’s stomach jolts.

He is a weak man.

“I don’t think so,” Anders says, “The clinic is—”

“I wasn’t talking about the clinic.”

“I…oh.” Anders sets down the crate he’s carrying, rubs one hand over his patchy stubble, “No. I’ve asked enough of you already.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be _asking_ if I’m _offering,”_

But he doesn’t push, because it’s Anders’s right to turn him down. Instead, he picks up his staff from where he left it and heads for the door, feeling it getting late even as the lack of natural light makes it hard to tell.

“My offer does stand though,” he says, pausing in the doorway, “My door’s open. I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to…to _do_ justice.”

 

* * *

 

“Your brother is very protective of you.”

“Is he? I haven’t noticed.”

Fenris cocks his head, considers Garrett with those green eyes, dark green, like a pool in the middle of a wood. Garrett feels scrutinised under that green, green gaze and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Fenris moves to settle into one of the chairs by the fire, and Garrett notices he walks with a limp, some injury he is ignoring along with the rattle in his chest.

“I don’t see why,” Fenris says eventually, drawing one knee up against his sternum, “You seem capable.”

“Ah. We lost our sister. Coming here. Probably hit him harder; she was his twin.”

Fenris blinks, “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise,” Garrett says, fidgeting his hands, “You didn’t kill her. Unless you’re actually an ogre, in which I’m going to have to cut this relationship off right now.”

He’s rewarded for that with a smile, and suddenly Fenris looks softer, even with the dark armour and harsh lines of lyrium, despite the fire casting half his face in shadow.

“So, what will you do now?” he asks, because he’s no good with quiet and he’s eager to cover up the wound he calls Bethany by talking about someone who is not him.

“I don’t know,” Fenris says softly, and his eyes reflect the fire, going gold and glassy, “What did you do, when you came here?”

“I moved in with my uncle,” Garrett says and, sensing Fenris wants a real answer, “And I picked myself up and started again.” He runs a hand through his hair, braid slipping between his fingers, “It’s all I know how to do.”

Fenris says nothing else. He sinks lower into the chair, curling like a cat in the sun, and watches Garrett with those liquid eyes, as if Garrett is the mirror of him and he believes there are answers to be found in his own reflection.

 

* * *

 

Isabela is easy to be with. There’s no pressure with her, no expectations of what mages are, no Deep Roads expedition hanging over his head, no mother looking at him like he’s their only way out. She’s just Isabela, who wants his conversation, his _company_ and, occasionally, for him to help her split some skulls.

“You’re still here.”

Garrett groans and buries his head into Isabela’s pillow, “What’s my alternative?”

“Oh, you can stay. I’m admiring the view.”

She’s still warm next to him and he feels her tracing up from his navel to his collar bone before she turns her attention to the tattoo on his face. Garrett almost bats her hand away but the fact that she’s letting him languish in her bed keeps him still.

“Very Fereldan,” she says, “I think I saw a noble with a design like this one. Different colour though.”

“You rubbed elbows with a lot of nobles in Ferelden?”

“The ones who really matter.”

She gets up then, sheets pushed aside, and grabs Garrett’s jacket to cover herself against the cold. She looks back at him, the sun through her hair gleaming like a crown, prettier by far than Andraste herself.

“I’ll have to move eventually,” Garrett says, rolling onto his back and stretching, “I really don’t need Aveline launching a missing person’s search for me.”

“You do struggle, Hawke,” Isabela says, but she makes no move to surrender Garrett’s jacket, even when he gets up and gets dressed. She crosses one leg over the other, and her mouth curves in a smile, “Same time tomorrow night?”

“I’ll say yes,” he says, and he rolls his staff between his palms, “But don’t hold me to that commitment.”

Isabela snorts, “As if, sweetness. I know you.”

Garrett presses a hand against his chest, “I’m so glad someone in this city truly understands me.” He takes a step out of the room before he pops his head back, “I owe you drinks.”

Isabela beams, “Now _that_ is a commitment I will hold you to.”

 

* * *

 

Merrill asks him to go looking for flowers with her. She says she wants them for her house, which is still so bare, and for the vhenadahl, because her neighbour has said she can leave trinkets there too, and that she would ask Carver but he’d told her he was busy this week.

“It’s such a shame,” she says, windswept and gathering cornflowers, “He knows so much about flowers.” Garrett must look surprised because she smiles, almost laughs, “He says your sister told him.”

“Bethany _did_ know a lot about flowers,” Garrett says, and he ignores the gorse scratching his arm, “I never did. I nearly ate belladonna once.”

“Hawke!”

“It’s true. I was seven, and that was the day my father learnt I could never be left unsupervised.”

“Well, I’ll keep an eye on you,” Merrill says, patting his arm, “I don’t want to be the one to tell Carver you died because you ate a poisonous flower.”

“It’s not as grim as you think. I’m sure he’d be relieved that he doesn’t have to deal with me anymore.”

Merrill looks at him and her expression makes him regret speaking. Her eyes are green, like Fenris, but if his were pools, hers are forests, with soft leaves and dappled light.

“I think you both need to talk to each other,” she says, “Though, I suppose, living so close together doesn’t help.”

“You never had to live in close quarters with someone?”

“The keeper.” She hesitates, piles the flowers into his arms, “You might have noticed that hasn’t turned out well.”

“Really not painting a good picture for me and Carver, Merrill.”

“I’m not, am I?” Merrill sighs and squats down in the grass, reaching to touch the sharp leaf of a milk thistle. It prickles at her fingers. Her eyes close, “Maybe it will all get easier after your Deep Roads adventure. You can get a bigger house.”

Garrett leans to tuck a daisy behind her ear, “I love your optimism.”

 

* * *

 

Chantries make him nervous. He thinks it all started when he was six, and his magic was new and his mother held his hand so much tighter when the Templars passed on the way to the twins’ dedication. Or maybe when he was nine, and had tried to burrow into his father’s side because every time the cleric had mentioned the magisters, she’d looked straight at him and it felt like she _knew._ Or even because he loathed the feeling of being watched and this, he’d said to Carver, is the real reason he wouldn’t last long in the Circle.

But he finds himself in Kirkwall’s again. And again. And again.

“I took care of those mercenaries for you,” he says, leaning on the wall, “So your family can rest nice and easy.” He taps out a pattern on the marble behind him, “Who _are_ you exactly?”

The man frowns, “My post to the Chanter’s Board? Her Grace let that…” He recovers quickly, that frown smoothing away, “My name’s Sebastian Vael. _Prince_ of Starkhaven.”

“A prince? Should I bow? I feel like my manners are lacking.”

“You don’t need to bow. I haven’t used my title in a long time.”

Maker, Garrett wants to roll in that voice. He can’t, of course, because reality hates metaphors, and continuing this conversation isn’t an option with Carver waiting for him. Instead, he fishes the locket out of his jacket pocket, holds it out; Sebastian takes it, as if he’d afraid it will bite him.

“I found it on one of the mercenaries,” he says, “They didn’t look like the jewellery type; I figured it belonged to someone you know.”

“It did,” Sebastian says, though he doesn’t elaborate. He straightens his shoulders, closes his fingers around the locket’s chain, “I need to speak to the viscount about aid for a fellow city state. And I’ll arrange proper payment for you as—”

“No rush,” Garrett says, suddenly uncaring about the Maker’s eyes on his back, “Getting rid of baby-killers is its own reward.”

He hugs his mother when he returns that evening, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and tugging her under his chin as she tries to draw some life out of the fire. She reaches up to tuck his braid back behind his ear.

“What’s wrong?” she says, and she looks from him to Carver, who’s already unlacing his boots. Carver only shrugs.

“Does a man need an excuse to hug his mother?” Garrett says, and Leandra seems content enough with that.

He lies awake that night with Wallace lying across his stomach. His mind turns itself over and over, twisting itself inwards at the thought of his mother, his brother, being killed when he wasn’t there to protect them.

 

* * *

 

The expedition leaves at dawn. Garrett blinks against the rising sun, bleary eyed and still yawning, and falls into step beside Anders. Carver is ahead, with Wallace, one hand constantly on the mabari’s ruff. He looks more tense than usual.

“Was he at Ostagar?” Anders says, “You said he was in the army.”

“It took him a month to come home. And he refuses to talk about it.”

“I knew someone who saw Ostagar.” Anders says and he looks at the dawn sky, their last glimpse of daylight before the earth swallows them, “He never talked about it either.”

Garrett’s stomach drops when the smell of the Deep Roads hits him and he thinks that, maybe, bringing Carver here would do more harm than good. The dark is heavy and pressing, so he sends lights up and ahead; Carver is the only one who doesn’t flinch. Even Varric twitches. The air is stale and Garrett jogs to catch up with his brother.

“You can smell them, even here,” Carver says, “It’s all wrong.”

“Poor dog,” Garrett says, patting Wallace’s head, “But just think, Carver. We do this, _everything_ looks up for us. No more debt. No more Gamlen. No more rat soup using the same rat for three nights in a row.”

“No more Templars.”

“Less fear of the Templars,” Garrett says. He swaps his staff from one hand to the other, flexing his fingers against the leather-wrapped wood, “This expedition is going to _make_ us, Carver, just watch. Things are finally going to look up for the brothers Hawke.”


	2. Act Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Handers has officially landed!
> 
> Note that this part has the Arishok making Hawke into a human kebab and some romanticising going into the mountains to die.

Malcolm had once said to him, ‘ _All things have a price.’_ Magic’s price was mana drain, lethargy, a six year old not allowed to play with the other village children anymore, or hold his new baby sister. The price of staying together, of being a family, had been a hollow beneath the floor of every house, somewhere he and his father had hidden when the Templars called, even when Garrett started getting too big and they’d had to hide Bethany too; the price had been his mother’s honesty and Carver’s childhood and being able to belong anywhere.

The story of Garrett Hawke’s life, it seems, is that anything resembling safety costs family.

He writes to Carver, but never sends the letters. He goes to the Chantry, hoping for some glimpse of the blue eyed prince. He follows Fenris up and down the Wounded Coast, because it’s restless like he is, searching for something he can’t name. He lets Merrill put daisies in his hair and tell him her Dalish stories because she misses Carver too, though she shows it much more easily. He haunts the Hanged Man with Varric and Isabela and ignores his mother when he returns to Hightown too late.

“You need to stop hiding from your mother here.”

“Who says I’m hiding?”

Garrett looks up from his position on the floor, sitting with his back to the wall, carefully rolling Anders’ stock of bandages. Anders is sat at his ramshackle desk, watching him, glass of something golden in one hand.

“I’m something of an expert on hiding,” he says, “So if you want advice…”

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I said Justice doesn’t let me get drunk,” Anders corrects him, “Not that it matters; unless Kirkwall starts serving the Weisshaupt Special, nothing would get me drunk.” He downs his drink, “You can stay, if you want.”

They end up sharing a bed that night, curled tight against the cold. Garrett wakes with his face pressed against the plane of Anders’ chest, arms looped around a narrow waist. He can feel fingers in his hair and he grips the back of Anders’ shirt.

“I should go,” he mumbles, and for a moment, he thinks Anders hasn’t heard him. Then the hands withdraw and Anders goes with them.

“Yes,” Anders says, and he pushes his own hair out of his face, shoves the blankets aside, “You…have someone waiting for you.”

 

* * *

 

“So, you and Anders?”

Isabela leans on the fireplace, her hip cocked, and beckons to the dog. Wallace twitches an ear but doesn’t move, content to stay in his place by the fire.

“Me and Anders,” Garrett says, “are hardly an item.”

“You gave him flowers, Hawke.” Isabela mimes tying a bow, “Tied them to his staff.”

If she thinks the fact that he hasn’t been to bed with her in months is noteworthy, she doesn’t say it. She takes a seat on his desk, one leg propped on the arm of his chair, looks at him with something like fondness.

“Watch out for Grey Wardens though,” she says, “They’re infamous heartbreakers.”

“Isabela.”

“Hawke?”

“You’re sitting on all my letters.”

 

* * *

 

 Peace, it seems, is not something that comes easily to Sebastian Vael. If Garrett is any judge, peace is what Sebastian pays for justice; his family avenged, but his mind restless with the constant question of whether he has done the right thing. The reveal of Harimann’s betrayal only makes it worse. Garrett’s brought him back to the estate, because Leandra needs someone new to fuss over, hiding him in the library and away from Sandal.

“My sister used to fidget,” Garrett says, “When her mind was busy.”

Sebastian pauses his fletching, “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

“About Starkhaven.”

“Ah, well, if you want my advice,” Garrett says, vaulting over the back of the couch to sit next to him, “I would go back.” Sebastian is quiet, turning the arrow over in his fingers. “No one tells a prince what to do. Or who to do it _with,_ for that matter.”

“Hawke!”

“You want a real reason? Do it for your cousin. I can’t imagine he wants it.”

“You think I do?”

“If you didn’t, this would be an easy choice.”

Sebastian goes quiet then and Garrett feels him lean in, warm against his side. It’s an unspoken request for comfort, for reassurance, and Garrett allows it, is glad to, even if his heart is skipping beats. His acceptance of it is an unspoken offer, a third option, one that lets the Chantry and Starkhaven fade somewhere in the background: _you can stay here, if you want to._

 

* * *

 

“I lost Fenris.”

Varric stops his writing, takes his glasses off and presses one square hand against his forehead. He sighs before looking up again, cleaning his glasses on the fabric of his shirt, rocking back so that his chair creaks.

“Go on then, Hawke,” he says, “Tell me how you managed to lose possibly the most distinctive elf in all of the Free Marches.”

“Well, I took him out on the Wounded Coast to weed out some slavers because it’s, you know, a living,” Garrett says and Varric nods sagely, “and he likes doing that. We end up being ambushed by people after _him_ and it turns out they were sent by his old master’s apprentice. So _of course_ we detour to go and find her.”

“Of course,” Varric says, and he shifts so he’s more comfortable, “You can hardly say no to that.”

“Right.” Garrett pauses to take a drink, something that tastes vaguely of soap and burns on the way down, “We find her, he punches a hole through her chest, I ask if he wants to talk about it and now he’s gone. I don’t know where, I don’t know when he’s coming back--”

“Wait, wait,” Varric says, “You asked him if he wanted to _talk_ about it? Right there?”

“Not my brightest hour.”

“He’ll be back, Hawke.” Varric reaches to pat Garrett’s shoulder, “He just needs time to cool off. And to wash the blood off his hands.” He falls back heavily into his chair, “Now, have you found that love story for me yet?”

“I’m working on it,” Garrett says and he thinks about Anders’s lamp-gold eyes and his rough hands, quiet and warm in Garrett’s, and quiet nervous kisses in the shadowed back room of the clinic.

But he also thinks of Sebastian. He thinks of blue eyes and restless hands and an accent rich in his ears. He groans and his forehead hits the table; he hears Varric laugh, because of course he does.

“You keep working on it Hawke,” he says, and Garrett hears the scratch of his pen again, “It’s your story.”

 

* * *

 

Fenris does come back.

Garrett comes home to find Fenris waiting for him, sitting hunched in the corner of foyer; his brands glow, and it’s gentle, not the blinding brilliance from the caverns. He stands when he sees Garrett but doesn’t meet his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, “About Hadriana. What happened in the caves. How I spoke. I wanted to apologise.”

“Apologise?” Garrett says, one hand over his heart, “Coming from a man with a big sword? That _is_ something new for me.”

“I mean it, Hawke. I was…not myself.”

“Yes you were. It’s not _bad_ to be angry, Fenris.” Garrett fidgets and he doesn’t _want_ to talk about this, not here and now, because the front door of his house is not the place to have this conversation, because he’s tired and sore and wants to change clothes, “Apologise for the things you say, not the way you say them.”

He collapses onto one of the benches, taking his weight off his feet, and sets his staff aside, “But apology accepted. And I’m sorry too. For not,” he takes a deep breath, in and out, “giving you time to breathe.”

 

* * *

 

“Trash. Trash. Keep. Trash.”

“Anders? What are you doing?”

Anders goes still then, and, with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed, he looks like a lonely and bedraggled bird. Garrett crouches next to him and rubs at the streak of blood that’s dried on his face, turning dark in the night air.

“I’m here,” he says, and he’s not going to press, not this time, “What do you need?”

Anders takes a deep, shuddering breath, “You saw what I did there. I almost killed a girl.”

“Almost is an important word here, Anders. We’ve almost done a lot of things.” Garrett rests his hand on Anders’s back, between his shoulder blades, half waiting for him to pull away, “You didn’t kill her.”

“Only because you were there!”

“You don’t know that! You might have stopped it. Justice might have.” Garrett shuffles round so that he and Anders were face to face. “And it wasn’t for nothing. Alrik’s gone, isn’t he?”

“And all evidence with him, no doubt.”

“You have so little faith,” Garrett says, and he unfolds Alrik’s papers on the ground between them, “Dead men can’t complain about pickpocketing.”

Anders reads quickly and it’s a beautiful thing to see relief break on his face like a wave, a relief that he was right, that he isn’t mad, that this was all stopped at the first hurdle. The paper crumples and creases in his hands.

 “Thank you,” he says, “Thank you.”

Garrett cups his face and kisses him, and he tastes relief on his tongue, feels a smile blooming against his lips. He pulls Anders close, Alrik’s papers and the caverns momentarily forgotten, and every kiss is a promise, repeated in the cadence of his heart: _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here._

 

* * *

 

Some days in Kirkwall, Garrett’s life start to feel the way it had been Before. Before losing his father, and then his sister and his brother too. Leandra sits in the sunny spot in the library with Wallace sprawled out by her feet, and she’s calm now, though there is still a furrow in her brow that had settled itself in those first two long years in Kirkwall. Garrett sits with her, sorting through his letters, one ear turned for the sound of visitors but only getting soft footsteps that could only be Orana.

“Your new beau sent you flowers.”

“Indeed he did,” Leandra says, “Lilies.”

“Am I ever going to meet him?” Garrett says, folding up a note from Sebastian, tucking it along with some pages of Anders’ manifesto in the middle of a book on Kirkwall’s history.

“That depends. Are you ever going to bring Anders to dinner?”

Garrett hesitates, “You’ve already met Anders.”

“Garrett,” Leandra says, “If you’re serious about him, I want him to feel like part of the family.”

“I will, soon,” Garrett says, “When he finds time.”

Leandra nods and stands, brushing a hand over Wallace’s head, “I’m going to go and see Gamlen. Don’t wait up for me.”

She wraps her shawl around her shoulders and the door closes quietly behind her. Garrett looks at the flowers she’d been sent, pinches one petal between his thumb and forefinger and wonders why this suitor sent lilies, when Leandra made no secret of liking roses best.

 

* * *

 

The house is dark. The floor is cold beneath his knees. He doesn’t move, even though it’s been hours, even when he hears Bodahn behind him, feels a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Tell Orana that she can still light the lamps,” Garrett says, “I know she doesn’t like the dark.”

“I…yes, messere,” Bodahn says. His hand doesn’t leave Garrett’s shoulder, “The guard-captain and your pirate friend are here. Shall I tell them to go?”

“No, I’ll see them,” Garrett says, though what he wants is to hide, to curl up in the dark and wait until this wound he can’t tend stops hurting, “I’ll see them.”

The warmth leaves his shoulder but Bodahn’s footsteps stop at the door and Garrett only has a moment to wonder if it’s safe to huddle in on himself before Bodahn speaks again.

“I’m very sorry about Mistress Amell,” he says, “She reminded me of my own mother.” Garrett turns but he’s only a shadow, “If there’s anything you need, messere, anything at all, you just need to ask.”

 

* * *

 

His own blood chokes him, clogs his throat, slips beneath his fingers as he slides on the Arishok’s sword. Red drips down, dots the Arishok’s face the qunari, mountain of a creature, mountain of a man, lowers his sword and nudges Garrett down to the ground. Garrett wants to howl with the pain of it, his wounded back hitting the marble floor, but he manages only a gurgle. Blood boils up out of the hole in his gut, oozes from his back, and he reaches for his staff with slick fingers.

Somewhere, far away, he sees Carver, all blue and silver, gleaming like the stuff of legends.

Sometime, here and now, he is going to die.

But he sees the Arishok and he sees the gathered crowd and he thinks, he _decides_ , that he is not dying alone.

He forces himself to his knees, his whole body protesting, one hand pressed against his belly, and he swings his staff round, one time, one last time. He tightens his fingers around a fistful of blood, he casts, and something dark and secret coils beneath his tongue. The Arishok crumbles, a paper boat in a storm and not like a mountain at all. Garrett follows, curling around the wound in his belly and pulling the one in his back, sinking against mail and plate that hadn’t been there before.

He tastes his dry mouth and he regrets that he can’t tell Carver how much he’s missed him.

 

* * *

 

He shouldn’t have survived, but he did.

He shouldn’t have survived, but he almost wishes he hadn’t.

Anders keeps him on bedrest; the wound on his back healed, stitched and smoothed by the burn of Anders’s magic, but his belly is still raw. He tells Anders that it’s fine when healing magic fails; he wants it to scar, anyway. But the pain keeps him awake at night, and Anders lies beside him through those long hours, as if trying to shield him from it. It works for a while, allowing Garrett a few thin hours of sleep.

There are some things, though, that even Anders’s magic can’t hope to touch. Eventually, he asks for Sebastian.

“I see Varric’s been,” Sebastian says, and he runs a finger over the books Varric had left, “Is his writing as good as he says?”

Garrett doesn’t have the heart to tell Sebastian that he hasn’t read them, that he spends his days staring up at the ceiling, the hours passing in a haze that he never remembers. Instead, he shrugs.

“They’re not his, I don’t think.”

He sits quiet and lets Sebastian nose around the other things that have been brought for him: fruit and ale from Varric, intended to remind Garrett to smile; potted plants from Merrill, sweet smelling, and curious Dalish charms that she says will help in their own small way; Fenris had brought back books he’d borrowed, his first handwritten note tucked between the pages, before he’d slipped out of the estate again.

“You’re not lacking for good company,” Sebastian says, “Why do you ask for mine?”

Garrett swallows, “Carver had to go. Who else could understand, if not you? Who else could I _possibly_ turn to, if not you?”

Sebastian turns and the sun catches him, winks on the gold thread in his robe, “Your mother?”

“My mother.” Garrett bites his lip, “What…what did you do, when your mother died?”

Sebastian is quiet for a long while. He slips one hand into his pocket and closes his fingers around something, his eyes closed against the sun, and he looks as if he’s searching for what to say.

“I ran away,” he says, “I ran away from the Chantry. I thought I could find some peace in justice. But, really, I was just running away from the thought that I should have been there with her. With all of them.” He draws his hand from his pocket, fingers unfolding to reveal the locket Garrett had returned to him years ago, “They are cold now, and I’m still here.”

He moves so that he’s at Garrett’s side again, and Garrett clings to him, head pressed against his hip. He ignores the ache in his belly and the heat in his eyes and his whole world narrows down to Sebastian, to the solid presence of him, one hand combing through Garrett’s hair.

“Don’t blame yourself, Garrett,” Sebastian says, and it’s the first time he’s used Garrett’s name, “You did everything you could. You were with her to the end.” His hand comes to rest on the back of Garrett’s head, reassuring in his steadiness, “And she was not afraid.”

 

* * *

 

Garrett lies still in the meadow, watching as thin streaks of cloud cut the sky, wispy birds’ trails that stretch towards the horizon. Around him, insects sing and he can hear cattle not far off, the low rumble of them that reminds him so much of Lothering. The grass yields as Anders lies beside him, fingers entwining with his.

“We could stay here,” Garrett says, “Just the two of us.”

“How long?”

“Years. Hours.” Garrett sighs, “However long it takes.”

“We’d scare the sheep.”

“Fall asleep here, never go back. Be exactly as we are.” He rolls onto his side, burrows under Anders’s arm and hides his face against Anders’s ribcage, “Something would find us. Insects, foxes. Kites or buzzards.” He clings to Anders’s shirt, “No one would remember our names. We’d become flowers.”

“Garrett.” Anders sits up and his shadow falls over Garrett’s face, “Do you want to die?”

“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Garrett says, and he _knows_ how he sounds, “Not if you were here. I’d be home with you.”

Anders pushes him onto his back again, kisses him properly, and Garrett feels the peeling sunburn on his nose healing over. Anders presses their foreheads together and Garrett can smell magic on him and it’s home it’s home it’s _home_

“Stay with me,” Anders says, and it’s said like a prayer, half breathed and mostly whispered.

“Don’t worry,” Garrett says, and he’s half saying it for himself, because he doesn’t _want_ to feel this way, doesn’t want this empty haze, this feeling that there is little else waiting for him, “I’ll stay. It’s not that kind of story.”


	3. Act Three

Life, Garrett finds, goes on. Mornings still come, sometimes soft and golden, sometimes grey and rolling. The Chantry still wakes him up with its bells and its singing and, in those moments, it’s almost too easy to forget how long and dark its shadow is. The Hanged Man still serves swill that’s closer to vinegar than it is to wine, Wallace still paws at the door at unsociable hours and the Fade still beckons when he’d rather be left alone.

But for all its constancy, life changes. The world is emptier with no mother to fill it, but Orana blooms with no slave master hanging over her head; she sings when she works now, in Tevene, songs that Fenris says are love songs but he doesn’t remember ever hearing them. There’s a cat now, an old girl Sebastian brought from the Chantry, much to the delight of Sandal and Anders.

And of course, there’s Anders.

“Where’d you get this one?”

“This?” Anders turns the amulet in his hands, “From my first escape attempt.”

It’s an easy night for them, lounging in bed with the windows open to Kirkwall’s sticky summer air. Anders is half dozing, the humidity keeping him up far more than Garrett is. He’s more than happy to let Garrett dote on him, to poke into his past, at least tonight.

“And this one?” Garrett asks, running a finger along the chain. It’s dark and red, made of glass, and hangs next to a ring set with a blue stone.

“Those are from the Wardens,” Anders says and he closes one hand over Garrett’s, “Maybe we leave that one.”

“You must have some stories.” Garrett leans heavily on his elbow, “Sell them to Varric, get some money for the clinic.”

“You and I both know he doesn’t pay for inspiration.”

Garrett settles his head on Anders’s chest, one hand spread on the bare skin of Anders’s stomach, chill on his fingers. Outside, he hears the far off sound of the sea, the night time stirrings of sea birds, the creaks and groans of the city. Inside, he hears the steady beat of Anders’s heart, the in and out rush of his breathing.

“Anders?”

“Mngh?”

“Thanks for carrying me down off that mountain.”

 

* * *

 

“You have my thanks for stepping in, Champion. If you had not…”

Garrett squints up at the sky, noting the position of the sun, and decides that it’s too early to even try and be tactful, “Not to be rude or anything, but my mabari is better behaved than Meredith.”

Elthina’s smile is wry, “With due respect to your mabari, his position is very different to Meredith’s.”

She turns away from him to address the crowd, a colourful cluster of Kirkwall’s best, and Garrett isn’t sure if they gathered to hear what Orsino had to say or because they were hoping for a spectacle. With all the eyes on him, there’s a nagging feeling that it was just as likely that they’d turned out in the hope of seeing him.

“And now I must go to the Gallows,” Elthina says. She hesitates, and for a moment her mask of composure slips, a brief glimpse of worry, “Before I go, I have to ask. Is Sebastian with you?”

Garrett looks around, “Not today.”

Elthina rubs her forehead, “Then he’s no doubt pursuing some heroics. He’s so like he was when he first came to us. And we’d made so much progress.”

“ _Due respect_ , Grand Cleric, but Sebastian’s a person. He’s not a project.”

Elthina says nothing. She turns her back, goes to the Gallows to soothe Meredith’s wounded pride, and Garrett’s left only feeling grateful that she hadn’t condescended to calling him a child.

 

* * *

 

“How’s my best girl?”

Isabela gives Garrett a sideways glance, “Merrill? Still at home.”

She picked up her drink and stood, beckoning to him to follow her to a table. He revives the lantern with a click of his fingers and she just raises an eyebrow before dropping onto the creaking bench.

“You don’t have to check on me, Hawke,” she says, “I’m fine.”

“You think I’m checking on you? Maybe I want to talk about Merrill.” He gestures and she hands the bottle over, “But since I’m here, how have you been?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Since the last time I saw you, there was a hole in your stomach.”

“I got better,” Garrett says, and he hopes that no one’s told Isabela about the dark pit that had followed, “And now I have a story to impress guests with.”

“Do you remember what you said when I saw you?”

“That you did the right thing.”

“It was the _stupid_ thing,” Isabela says and she swipes the bottle back, “I should have kept running. Maybe the qunari would have followed me.”

“I’m glad you came back. It would have been much worse without you.”

“Bullshit. You could have done it. You and Aveline…and you’re still not talking to her, are you?” Isabela leans on the table, “You’re talking to me but not the big girl?”

“You know what? Let’s not talk about this. Let’s talk about _Merrill_ instead.”

“I was about to say we have nothing in common anymore,” Isabela says, “But there’s always Kitten.” She drains the bottle, sets it down hard, “If you need me, you know where I’ll be.”

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Garrett dreams of Kirkwall as a great weight, tangled around his ankles and pulling him down into a pit with no bottom, dragging him away from everything he wanted to be, everything he had been before all this had happened. Other times, he dreams of himself as caught between two hounds, mages and Templars, what is right and what is easy. There are letters, always letters: Champion, find these apostates: Champion, protect my cousin from the Templars: Champion, find my daughter, _please._

His cousin, he knows, is the Hero of Ferelden, chancellor to the crown, and he wishes he could call Gwydion Amell a friend. He wants to call on him, ask for advice, that constant question of _how do you do it_ and _does it get easier._

He’s written letters before, burnt them quickly afterwards. They all amount to the same thing, a request he can’t speak: _help me help me help me_

 

* * *

 

“Elthina kicked you out of the Chantry?”

“I left the Chantry. There’s no place for me there now.”

“Because Elthina told you that?”

“She’s right, Hawke,” Sebastian says, “The Chantry’s lodgings are for brothers and sisters.”

They’re sat on the docks, feet dangling over the water. Sebastian’s been dropping pebbles and shells into the grey water, watching them vanish. He’d shown his face in Kirkwall again that morning, a pearly pale dawn, looking scruffier than Garrett had ever seen him. Garrett’s first instinct had been to lift him off his feet, hug him close, and tell him how much he’s missed him.

All things considered, he’s proud of his restraint.

“So why did you leave?” Garrett asks, rolling his staff against the wooden slats, “Get bored of sitting on your hands?”

“For Starkhaven.” Sebastian’s voice hardens, “And some _differences_ over Chantry doctrine.”

“You’ve changed, Vael.”

“You underestimate your influence, Hawke.”

They lapse into silence, the waves beating against the beams beneath them. Chill sets in as the sun sets and the wind coming off the sea strengthens but neither of them moves to leave; instead, Garrett tugs Sebastian closer, holds on to him.

“Stay with me?” he whispers, “As long as you like.”

“What about Anders?”

“He’ll barely notice you. He hardly notices me, some days.” Garrett presses his face against Sebastian’s hair and he wishes that the world was still as simple as it had been when they’d first met, “You can stay with me.”

 

* * *

 

When he’s in the Gallows, he can’t help but think of his father. Malcolm had always relished the sun, taught his children to. The sea had been like home to him, and the salt smell of it had been comforting and familiar to Garrett since he was small.

There’s no sun in the Gallows, and the sea is nothing but a distant crash through its stone walls. Malcolm would have been stifled here.

Garrett smooths out his fear and steps into the knight-commander’s office, knowing that he is surrendering all control here, placing his faith into his good reputation.

 “Champion,” she says, straightening as he enters, not noticing how rigid his spine is, “Thank you for coming.”

“You’re not the kind to give me a choice,” he says, “What do you want me for?”

“There was an incident in the Gallows. Some of our mages took the opportunity to escape. I would have you retrieve them.”

“No,” Garrett says, “They’re out. Good for them. I’m not bringing them back to you.”

“Let me make something clear,” Meredith says, and Garrett steps back away from her, “You are an apostate. The only reason you are not in the Circle is that I see you as acting in Kirkwall’s interests.” Another step forward and Garrett’s back hits the wall. He wonders what she would do if he showed his teeth here, “If that changes…”

“So if I don’t do as you say, I’m a threat?” Garrett curls his fingers behind his back, open and close, like a flower, “You think the Circle could hold me?”

“We have ways of making sure of that.”

Garrett’s heart hammers in his chest, a bird in a cage, and he doesn’t meet Meredith’s eyes again. Anders, he thinks, would be ashamed of him here, and Bethany too, if she could see him; for all he’d told her to never give Templars her fear, what is he doing here and now?

“Do we have an understanding, Champion?” Meredith says. She gestures towards the blonde woman in the corner, still as a statue, colder than cold, “Speak to my assistant Elsa for more details.”

She leaves him then, alone with the unblinking Elsa. Garrett watches her and he wonders, wants to ask, when was the last time she’d told Meredith no.

 

* * *

 

Anders come to him in the middle of the night, climbing into the bed and pressing up against his back, cold and smelling of the night air. Garrett blinks awake blearily, sees the dark coat in a pile on the floor, and turns so he can pull Anders against his chest.

“Busy night?” he asks, burying his face in Anders’s neck, breathing in the sharp smell of elfroot.

Anders doesn’t reply. There’s something about him tonight, something nervous and vibrant, keeping sleep at bay. Garrett is content to doze like that, wrapped around him, shelter him from whatever it is that has him on a knife’s edge.

“You can talk to me, Anders,” he says sleepily, “I’m listenin’.”

“I know.” Anders tightens his hold, “I love you. And I want you to know that, no matter what happens.”

Garrett doesn’t ask, because Anders has these blue episodes, cast over with the same cloud that had hung over Garrett’s head once, what feels like almost a lifetime ago. He doesn’t need prodding and questions; what he needs is patience, and a promise that Garrett will be there on the other side.

“Nothing’s going to happen, Anders,” he says, rolling onto his back, sleep now lost to him as it so often is, “Nothing that we can’t take on together.”

 

* * *

 

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“That’s always been your problem, Anders. Assuming you know what I have to say.”

Anders takes a deep breath and Garrett can imagine how it burns on its way down, how it tastes on the back of his tongue. That was one downside to magic; it made one so intimately familiar with fire.

“So what are you going to do?”

Garrett doesn’t have a quick answer. He looks up at the Chantry, and he can’t bring himself to feel sorry for it. He looks to the others, hanging back, to Isabela and Varric and Merrill, wanting to gauge their reaction. Then he looks to Fenris, at his side, always the constant. His eyes are dark now.

“I’m the Champion of Kirkwall,” Garrett says quietly, half to himself. He looks back at Anders, who seems dwarfed by the situation, “Meredith is going to annul the Circle, and anyone else who’s ever harboured a mage.” He rolls his staff in his hand, “Because of me, that makes the whole city guilty. I can’t let that happen.”

In truth, he wants to huddle on the ground at Anders’s feet, tell the world how tired he is, how he’s had enough. But he can’t. Anders had coaxed him down from a mountain once, walked him out of his worst when the world had worn him down enough; it’s time for him to return the favour.

“Merrill,” he says, trying to blot out the sound of armoured feet in the streets, coming towards them, just for a moment, “Go with Varric and Isabela to Lowtown. The three of you should get there before the Templars do. Warn people what’s coming.” He scrubs one hand over his face, “Get the elves to close the gates to the alienage.”

“Hawke.”

“Aveline?”

And there she is, battering ram of a woman, barely registering that Anders was there. Her fleet of guards is with her, watching smoke clog the sky.

“You didn’t think I’d let you have all the fun?” she says, and it’s almost like old times, before the Deep Roads, before the Arishok, before Quentin. She gestures to her guards, “What do you need of us?”

“Darktown,” he says, “That’s where they’ll start. Most of you can go there, head them off. The rest can stay in Hightown; the people here are better equipped to defend themselves, but they’ll still need help. Anyone in Templar armour should be treated like an enemy.” He swaps his staff from one hand to the other, flexes his fingers, magic like nettles in his palm, “If we all live through this, I owe everyone a drink.”

When the rest have gone, he pulls Anders back to his feet, pulling him up by the elbow.

“You’re with me,” he says, “You, me and Fenris.” He catches at the end, because Sebastian is gone, “Together.” He squeezes Anders’s hand, “Just like I said.”

 

* * *

 

The last time he’d seen Carver, he’d been half convinced he was dreaming; some combination of pain and blood loss and exhaustion breaking him down until he was seeing visions of his family, his lost little brother all clad in silver.

“I thought Wardens weren’t meant to get involved in these things,” Garrett says. Anders and Fenris hang back, blood cooling on their faces, “Too political for them.”

“I’m not here as a Warden,” Carver says, “I’m here as a Hawke, for my brother in over his head. Again.” He avoids meeting Garrett’s eyes, “I should have done it before, instead of leaving you to do it on your own.”

Here, Garrett knows, he’s talking about their mother, her death and her funeral and her will, everything Garrett had had to address with only Gamlen at his back. Garrett can’t blame him; he would have avoided it all, if he’d had the choice.

“That’s all past,” he says, “You’re here now; that’s what matters.”

 

* * *

 

Kirkwall sits heavy on his shoulders as Isabela sails them away from the city. Garrett retreats into the captain’s cabin and he hides himself away again. In his mind’s eye, he sees himself, bent and buckled, broken, a city burning on his back.

Selfish, his mind tells him. Failure. Couldn’t save Bethany; couldn’t protect Carver. Failed your mother. Abandoned your city. Some Champion.

He sleeps and he half wishes he won’t wake, wants to close his eyes and leave everything, let someone else handle it all for a change. He wants to be lost and never found.

In the end, it’s Carver who comes for him, wakes him gently, hand on his shoulder and rocking him out of sleep slowly. That, he learnt from Garrett, from their early days in Kirkwall, when Ostagar had been the gasp of horror constantly behind Carver’s teeth.

“Come on, Garrett,” he says, and he’s older now, and sounds like their father, “You can’t stay like this forever.”

“Where’s Anders?” Garrett asks, and he’s slow to move.

“Avoiding your prince.”

“Carver,” he says, “Did I do enough?”

Carver’s reply is immediate, hard and biting, all the bitterness of the nineteen year old Garrett had left behind swelling up to the surface.

“You did more for that city than it deserved,” he says, fierce, “Don’t blame yourself, Garrett; it was them who failed, not you.”

It should be enough, hearing that from Carver. But it isn’t. Garrett’s head dips and he cries, selfish child, crying to _Carver_ who has Blight in his veins, more a burden than Kirkwall could ever be.

 

* * *

 

It’s growing dark as they approach Ostwick. Garrett can see the city, the candles starting to glow in all those windows. Sebastian lets him near, at least, and he’s grateful for that.

“I didn’t say thank you before,” he says, “For coming back.”

“I had to. What good am I, if I leave so many innocents to be put to the sword because of one man’s actions?” Sebastian’s eyes are hard, blue ice in the blue dark, “Where’s the _justice_ in that?”

“And I’m sorry. I know you parted on bad terms but she meant a lot to you.”

Sebastian stays quiet. There’s a cut on his forehead, one that goes deep, cleaned up but ultimately untouched. He won’t let Anders near him. He doesn’t flinch away when Garrett lightly touches it, lets magic wash over it. The wound knits together and closes, skin unmarred as if it were never there. He catches hold of Garrett’s hand, looks at him with eyes that still take his breath away, and kisses his fingertips.

“So do you.” Still holding onto Garrett’s hand, Sebastian leans in and kisses him. Garrett can taste his own magic on Sebastian’s lips, electric and dizzying, “Goodbye, Garrett.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, they can’t stay together. Varric and Merrill return to Kirkwall: for the elves, Merrill says; for its own sake, says Varric. Isabela goes to sea, finally _finally_ free, the only one who really finds herself again with Kirkwall in flames. Carver goes back to the Wardens, because he can’t stay away, and Garrett insists he take Wallace with him. Fenris stays, and he shrugs when he’s asked why, says he has nowhere else to go.

The world boils down to the three of them, hidden away in a cave somewhere. Fenris is curled up asleep on his side, glowing like the moon. Anders leans against Garrett, head pillowed on Garrett’s shoulder, getting the first real sleep Garrett had seen from him since Kirkwall.

Garrett himself sits awake, keeping first watch. He’s resigned himself now, to not having a place called home, to find home in the hearts and hands of the people around him. For now, it’s with Anders. It’s with Fenris. Always moving. He’s content, if it can be called that, to go wherever the story takes him and hope that it leads somewhere kinder. He smiles into the cool night.

And somewhere, beyond the dark, Fate smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's over...it's done...
> 
> This was more of a challenge than it should have been. Mainly the picking and choosing of what to include and what to leave out. Maybe one day I will fill in some of the gaps; a one shot here, a drabble there. Garrett has a lot to his canon that I excluded from this particular fic for my own sanity ;)


End file.
